Estée Lauder spilled perfume on a department store floor and the scent attracted so many customers the buyer finally placed an order. When ad agencies rejected her due to budget limits, she invented the free-sample strategy, spending everything to give shoppers product samples, which became industry standard.
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Welcome to another Famous Friday. I believe that whatever goal you have, whatever mission you're on, whatever challenges you're facing right now, somebody has already solved it. And the easiest way to grow your business is to model the success of people who've already done it and apply it to your company. So today's lesson is be creative from Estée Lauder. As you grow your business, you're going to get people who will tell you no, who will say it's not possible, you can't do it, and they'll close the door on you. And you either decide like, okay, that's it, I gave it my best shot and it's not possible, or you be creative and you find another way to stand. And this is what Estée Lauder really understood. So when she was starting up her business, she's getting into the cosmetics industry, right? Super competitive, brutal business to get into, really hard to stand out and create new products, but she was determined to try. And to sell her product, her goal was to get into the high-end department stores. And she set up a meeting with the buyer from Galeries Lafayette, which is a big mall chain in Europe. And he was saying no, he was saying, nah, You know, it's not for us, it's not a good fit, we're not gonna buy from you, thank you for coming in. And they had the meeting on the floor of the department store. And when she realized that this isn't working, right, I'm trying to hard sell this guy, it's not working, I'm not getting what I want, he's not gonna give me the order, she had to be creative and find another way to stand. So what she did was she accidentally dropped the perfume on the floor and it spilled all over the place. And as a result, the aroma of the perfume started spreading throughout the store, and as people walked by, they were saying, "Um, what's that smell? What's that perfume? Where can I buy some? It smells so great." And the attraction and the interest from the people walking by made the buyer change his mind and place his first order with her. That's how she got her first order when he initially said no. And so she wasn't getting what she wanted, so she had to find another way to stand. She had to be creative. So as she was growing, she realized, "Hey, I can compete with these big companies. I can go toe-to-toe with them and sell my product, and I want to now amp up my business. I want to get to the next step." I'm gonna go take out an ad campaign to compete, to showcase how great my company is. And she went to all the different ad agencies and they all turned her down. Every single ad agency turned her down because her budget wasn't big enough. And again, she could have said, "You know what, it's not gonna work, I can't do this, so I'm not gonna try," because the door was closed in her face. But Estée Lauder instead chose to be creative and find another way to stand. And instead of doing an ad campaign, She started sampling. She put all of the money she had into sampling. So when somebody visited the department store, they would get a free sample of whatever cream, perfume she was selling at the time. Nobody was doing this. Think about it now. This has become standard practice. You go to any major department store, you walk into the cosmetics area, you're gonna get tons of free samples. Estée Lauder created that strategy, and it was created because she couldn't afford to do an ad campaign because she was turned down by every ad agency out there. She found another way to stand. She was creative, and this is something that you're going to have to do in your business because you're going to get so many people who turn you down, who close the door on you, who say it's not possible, who say no. And you have two options, right? The first is you just give up and you say, "Okay, I tried. This path is closed to me. That's it. That's the only way I'm going to be able to do it." Or you're like a real entrepreneur and you get creative and find another way to stand, another way to do it. Whatever your goal is, there's tons of paths to get there. And just because one doesn't work out, it doesn't mean you can't find another way. That strategy made Estée Lauder a multi-billionaire. I can help you achieve your dreams too. Belief. You guys like this video? You want to see more just like it? You can subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon. And don't forget, for my best information, join my newsletter and get on the Believe Team today.
Hi, I'm Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to. Period.
